'Sequester' still looks stupid, as planned

In the month since the much-feared federal budget "sequester" began, the world hasn't ended. In fact, there has been little effect of any kind, other than on the credibility of the Obama administration for issuing a string of dire warnings that have proved hollow.

But the sequester was designed to be stupid and painful - a device so awful it would force Democrats and Republicans to agree on budget cuts to avoid it. Now that they've failed, it's a safe bet that the pinch eventually will be felt and that pressure will ratchet up as time goes by.

Many agencies spent March simply planning how to meet their targets, leaving officials to cram a year full of spending cuts - 5.3 percent for domestic agencies and 7.8 percent for the Pentagon - into six months.

Some of the effects were announced early, such as decisions not to deploy a carrier task force to the Persian Gulf, and to cut the flying time for Navy air wings.

Other effects are beginning to pop up. The FAA announced it will close air traffic control towers at 149 smaller airports and furlough controllers at larger ones. How bad will that be for the flying public?

Ditto for the Pentagon, where military personnel are exempt, but civilian workers will have to take almost three weeks of unpaid leave - an echo of what has gone on in the private sector since 2008. Disruptive or merely inconvenient?

Federal courtrooms also will feel the effects, and because the Constitution explicitly bars reducing judges' salaries, non-judicial personnel probably will have to take deeper cuts to compensate. Will that mean shutting down federal courtrooms when marshals aren't available to secure them?

When the government shut down in the winter of 1995-96 during a standoff between congressional Republicans and President Bill Clinton, the president could exempt agencies and personnel that protected lives and property, which President Barack Obama cannot do today.

Even so, the parts of the government that did close back then were enough to anger Americans, who were frustrated to find they couldn't renew passports or visit national parks. Republicans eventually folded in disarray.

The sad part of this is not that the government has to spend less. In an era of unprecedented federal debt, that's a plus. Spending can be cut. Just not without some pain, and not with a plan that requires all things to be cut rather than focusing cuts on the least valuable programs.

Congress and the White House exempted some programs when they finalized the original deal, and the spending bill they agreed to in March to keep the government open to Sept. 30 spared some vital functions - food inspections, for example. But not enough. Nor does the sequester seriously address the major spending driver: health care costs.

The best outcome would be for the sort of anger that forced Congress and the White House to re-open the government in 1996 to push Congress and the White House back to the table on a realistic budget deal this year. The outlines of that deal have been obvious for too long: Trim entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, overhaul the hopelessly inefficient and corrupt tax code to bring in more money, and cut defense and domestic programs with a scalpel instead of an ax.

That's just something to keep in mind if you end up standing in long lines at the passport office or at airport checkpoints as the sequester slowly kicks in. It's a sad day when the only way to get politicians to do the right thing is to make Americans furious.

- USA Today

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'Sequester' still looks stupid, as planned

In the month since the much-feared federal budget 'sequester' began, the world hasn't ended.